Prosperity Campaign

Started in Miami in 2003, the Prosperity Campaign has rapidly expanded statewide, providing tax and benefit counseling to low-income Florida families to help them claim benefits and begin to build household savings and wealth. The money at stake is substantial. The federal Earned Income Tax Credit, for example, is a refundable tax credit of up to $4,300 for low-income working families and individuals; the average family receives nearly $2,000 — but many fail to claim the money they are owed. In Miami-Dade County, the Prosperity Campaign tax outreach effort generated an additional $62 million in revenue in the first year, with the “multiplier” effect of local spending producing an impact of a quarter billion dollars on the local economy.